Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

The willow is too close to the house.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

All your base are belong to Tunch.

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Come on, man.

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Taking a Hatchet to healthcare (Pt. 3)

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The first two parts of this series have looked at the private market for health insurance and the government programs.  Medicare is essentially unchecked while Medicaid gets a whole lot stingier.  The private market is allowed to exclude and underwrite in some circumstances while the federal government backs away from a lot of regulation. 

The most fascinating part is the financing mechanism.  Obamacare expanded coverage through a combination of generous tax credits and Medicaid expansion.  The CBO scored that this expansion was paid for by a combination of cutting down on Medicare Advantage payments and a wide variety of taxes such as the medical device excise tax, the Cadillac plan tax, sun tanning tax, the reinsurance tax and income tax surcharges on high income individuals and families.  The Hatch plan repealed Obamacare and all the taxes (interestingly, it also repeals a major student loan reform package, no mention of what is supposed to replace that system) but it claims to be deficit neutral so it has to pay for its limited subsidies somehow.

And the way it does is a doozy that immediately shows how politically not viable this proposal is:

Section 601: Capping the Exclusion of An Employee’s Employer-Provided Health Coverage

our proposal caps the tax exclusion for employee’s health coverage at 65 percent of an average plan’s costs. The value of employer-sponsored health insurance would be capped and indexed to grow at an annual rate of CPI +1.

So what does that mean? 

My health insurance just got a whole lot more expensive for me.  That is the short story.  My health insurance according to box 12DD cost $13,000 last year to cover my entire family.  That is 100% pre-tax dollars.  This proposal would make some of that post-tax dollars.  If average means average family plan, the average was $16,351 in 2013.  65% of that means $10,600 would be tax deductible.  The remaining $5,800 for the average person in an average family plan would be taxable.   Personally, I would be paying taxes on an additional $2,400 worth of compensation.  Some people with expensive plans would be paying taxes on a new $7,000 or $10,000 compensation that they don’t see in cash.  Most people would be paying taxes on significantly larger chunks of previously untaxed compensation. 

Furthermore, in the out years, the value of the exclusion gets weaker as either the health plan stays within the budget constraint of CPI+1 by significantly paring back coverage, or the average health plan costs increase and all of those increases shift to taxed compensation.   Again, this fits with the basic Republcian diagnosis of the “problem” that Americans have it too easy and too good and don’t have to worry about bankruptcy every time they blow out their knee while looking for their cat. 

From a build the system from scratch perspective, this is not a bad idea.  However, we aren’t building a system from scratch.  We’re tweaking a legacy system.  And given previous decisions, this translates into a massive tax increase for anyone who gets decent coverage through work and in the long run much lower acturial value of work provided coverage.

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Mandate exemption expansion

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By training I was a policy guy.  By career, I’m a symbolic analytical plumber.  By hobby, I’m a political junkie.

The recent announcement that individuals whose non-PPACA compliant individual plans are being cancelled on Jan. 1, 2014 is first and foremost a political decision with plumbing and policy impacts.

Ezra Klein from earlier this week:

The individual mandate includes a “hardship exemption.” People who qualify can either ignore the individual mandate altogether or purchase a cheap, bare-bones catastrophic insurance plan that’s typically only available to people under 30.

2. According to HHS, the exemption covers people who “experienced financial or domestic circumstances, including an unexpected natural or human-caused event, such that he or she had a significant, unexpected increase in essential expenses that prevented him or her from obtaining coverage under a qualified health plan.”

3. Today, the administration agreed with a group of senators, led by Mark Warner of Virginia, who argued that having your insurance plan canceled counted as “an unexpected natural or human-caused event.” For these people, in other words, Obamacare itself is the hardship. You can read HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ full letter here. HHS’s formal guidance is here.

The political reason is to save a net one or two Democratic Senate seats next fall by removing middle and upper class PPACA losers from being overwhelmingly pissed off.

So what are the plumbing and policy implications?

show full post on front page

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“Suspending” voting rights is a new twist

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We talked about how Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has set up a special election system in Kansas where some people may to vote in all elections, some people get to vote only in federal elections and some people get “suspended” and can’t vote at all.

Kobach is not a fringe figure on the Right:

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona’s SB 1070 immigration bill, ensured on Tuesday that the Republican Party platform will also have his fingerprint. During a meeting of the GOP platform committee in Tampa, Fla., Kobach called for the party to officially back increased border fencing and the E-Verify employment verification system, and to go after two immigrant-friendly initiatives: in-state tuition for some undocumented young people and so-called sanctuary cities. Those measures were in the 2008 Republican platform but had been dropped from the draft this year, Politico reported.
“These positions are consistent with the Romney campaign,” Kobach said. “As you all remember, one of the primary reasons that Governor Romney rose past Governor Perry when Mr. Perry was achieving first place in the polls was because of his opposition to in-state tuition for illegal aliens.”

The ACLU has filed a challenge in state court:

TOPEKA, Kan. – The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a lawsuit challenging Kansas’ two-tiered voter registration system. The petition charges that eligible voters are being divided into separate and unequal classes, in violation of the Kansas Constitution’s equal protection guarantees.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this summer that states could not impose a documentary proof-of-citizenship requirement for those who register to vote using the federal form. Voters declare under penalty of perjury that they are citizens when they register using the federal form.
Kansas has implemented a dual registration system to prevent people who use the federal form from voting in state and local elections unless they show additional documentary proof of citizenship. Voter registration for thousands of Kansans is already being held in “suspense” – essentially limbo – because of the new documentation requirements.
The ACLU petition charges that state officials have, without statutory authority, “unilaterally established an unprecedented and unlawful voter registration system that divides registered voters in Kansas into two separate and unequal classes, with vastly different rights and privileges…based on nothing more than the method of registration that a voter uses.”
“It makes absolutely no sense that someone would be qualified to vote for president, but not for governor,” said Dale Ho, director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project. “This case is about people who have done everything they are supposed to do – complied with all legal requirements for voter registration – but are arbitrarily being denied the right to vote in state and local elections simply because of the form they used.”
The lawsuit, Belenky v. Kobach, was filed in the Third Judicial District in Topeka on behalf of Equality Kansas and individual voters. The petition charges the dual system not only deprives Kansans of voting in state and local elections, but also denies them election-related rights such as signing petitions.

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“I feel glad it’s come to everybody’s attention; people are supposed to get paid when they work.”

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This is where it started, 2007:

The United States Supreme Court ruled yesterday against a home care aide from Queens and upheld federal regulations that exempt most home care workers from minimum-wage and overtime protections.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, said he would seek to amend the Fair Labor Standards Act to ensure that home aides were protected. He said the court decision highlighted “a significant gap in the protections of our laws,” and added that he would work with his colleagues “on a fair solution that treats these hardworking caregivers with the dignity and respect they deserve”.

We first looked at this fight in 2011.

Today:

The Obama administration announced on Tuesday that it was extending minimum wage and overtime protections to the nation’s nearly two million home care workers.
Advocates for low-wage workers have pushed for this change, asserting that home care workers, who care for elderly and disabled Americans, were wrongly classified into the same “companionship services” category as baby sitters — a group that is exempt from minimum wage and overtime coverage. Under the new rule, home care aides, unlike baby sitters, would be protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the nation’s main wage and hour law.
In an unusual move, the administration said the new regulation would not take effect until Jan. 1, 2015, even though regulations often take effect 60 days after being issued. The delay until 2015 is to give families that use these attendants, as well as state Medicaid programs, time to prepare for the new rule.
“We think the workers providing this critical work should be receiving the same basic protection and coverage as the vast majority of American workers,” said Laura Fortman, deputy administrator of the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division.

The White House said 92 percent of these workers were women

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It isn’t going to moochers, it’s going to looters, but in the grand scheme of things, does it matter?

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Ohio’s Lieutenant governor, Mary Taylor- best known for lying about the health care law– has switched gears and is mounting a campaign to defend Kasich’s budget. She’s doing this because Kasich’s budget strips state funding from local public schools and other local public entities and services.

She’s doing it because Mary Taylor knows what I know: that there is strong and deep resentment about the state collecting money from here and then not sending any back here, and that resentment is huge in the rural conservative counties that Republicans count on to win elections. Now, this has always been something of a myth. Just as state conservatives bitch incessantly about federal spending but are first in line for federal subsidies, local conservatives bitch incessantly about state spending but are first in line for state subsidies. It didn’t matter that it wasn’t true. Local conservatives are convinced that most of the money collected by the state goes to black people in urban areas. They’re convinced of that because Republicans told them it was true over and over and over again.

Kasich’s problem is that the myth that conservatives relied on to drum up resentment and division- where state money collected in rural counties wasn’t coming back to rural counties- is now true, except Kasich isn’t sending any money to the (alleged!) moochers in “urban areas”, he’s giving it to wealthy people, privatizers of formerly public entities like public schools, and corporate welfare; the looters.

This isn’t a wealthy county. We depend on state subsidies. Not only do we depend on state subsidies, but local conservatives are of the opinion that they are the ONLY state residents who earned and therefore deserve these state subsidies. They’re not moochers OR looters. They “paid in” and now they are simply making a withdrawal before the moochers get their grubby paws on it and distribute it to ACORN and abortion-on-demand.

Taylor can spin all she wants, but my local public school has lost 1.6 million a year in state funding and people here support and send their kids to public schools whether they’re Republicans or Democrats. To people here, their school isn’t getting their “cut” of state money. Maybe it’s going to black people, maybe it’s simply disappearing into the maw of Big State Government, they don’t care. They’re down 1.6 million a year and Kasich is “giving them back” 9 dollars a year with a much-oversold income tax cut, while raising sales taxes

Since Kasich’s budget primarily and overwhelmingly benefits wealthy people, his donors in the rip-off public school privatization industry, and corporations who not only don’t want to pay taxes, but actually want to be paid by us for doing business in this state, local conservatives (who are overwhelmingly lower and middle class here) are mad that the money the state collects here isn’t coming back here.

So that’s why Mary Taylor has taken a brief break from lying about the health care law to spinning like a top on Kasich’s trickle-down budget.

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Back to School With Privatization

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mpr2003-02cvrsml

This is an actual publication, BTW. I’m gonna read this 2008 issue just to discover what these two things might have in common:

Golf and University Privatization
MPR2008-01: Summer 2008
Published on June 17, 2008

Speaking of privatization, here’s another great education reform idea that is completely about kids and definitely not about racing to the bottom, privatization, or profit:

Michigan Republican Sen. Phil Pavlov, who chairs the state Senate’s education committee, is preparing legislation that would allow public school districts to hire teachers through private, for-profit companies. Privatizing the hiring process would presumably allow school districts to bypass compensation packages sought by teachers unions and let private companies compete for contracts with districts.
Pavlov didn’t respond to a request for comment on the teacher privatization plan. But Pavlov has publicly described his plan, which he said was still in the works, this way: “I look at it as offering options. If there is something out there that can offer school officials the same options at a lower cost, schools need to take a look at that. It needs to [be] part of the conversation on reform.”
Michigan Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, the state Senate minority leader, says she and the Democratic Caucus plan to fight Pavlov’s proposal if it is included in new education legislation. She describes teacher privatization as merely a continuation of Michigan Republicans’ education agenda. “Gov. [Rick] Snyder and Republicans have made no bones about it: they’re trying to dismantle public education in Michigan,” Whitmer says.

Ohio has been reforming schools much longer than Michigan. We’re well into the second decade of this totally new and innovative agenda here, so allow me to predict your future, Michigan. Reform means less funding for every existing public school, lower wages for local school employees and tests. Lots and lots of tests.

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Focus group

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We’re getting set to try to pass a local tax levy to build a new public school. As you know, I am a public school enthusiast but I also have a child in the local school system and we need a new school.

Because this is a majority Republican county and city I will be working with mostly Republicans to pass a tax levy. Obviously, these aren’t the Tea Party “base” of the GOP. These Republicans support “government schools” and also are mindful of the fact that tangible things like “schools” and “parks” and “libraries” don’t just form like Fruit On the Tree of Liberty and then drop to the ground to be gathered, but have to be paid for with taxes and then built. I think you would all call the levy people Chamber of Commerce Republicans, and that would be exactly what they are except they’re all in Rotary here, not the Chamber.

I have worked with some of them once before on a library levy, in 2006. In that campaign, we did what is called a “stealth levy.” A stealth levy is where one puts the tax increase on the ballot in a low-turnout election cycle and then targets supporters rather than do a big general push because the theory is a big general push only fires up the anti-tax people. The stealth levy worked, BTW, so don’t come crying to me with your “ethical” concerns on stealth. We won’t be using that this time out because there’s already been public meetings and such on finalizing the building proposal and now funding for that specific building plan will go on the ballot.

I’ll do GOTV which I like to think I am quite good at and don’t need any help with but I also will have to make some sort of “pitch” for the tax to local Democrats and, also, people who generally don’t vote. I know what I’ll say to (current) school parents, but what’s the best selling point for people who 1. no longer have children in the system, and 2. never had or never will have children in the system?

A practical hard-nosed explanation of why we need a new school? Property values? For The Children? Civic duty?

The tax isn’t that much so quit being such Dickensian misers? I voted for the senior center levy and I’m not a senior?

The general lay of the land is the public school is a big part of the town. Sporting events, music, social lives of parents, etc. It’s a rural school in a solidly working class/middle class area, so it’s not ultra-fabulous or state of the art or anything, but the (probably dicey and perhaps completely invalid) “grade” of the school is “excellent.” Also, all the employees live here and teachers (although they are union thugs) are not reviled and loathed. All three local judges are married to teachers and the mayor was a teacher before he was a mayor. Political environment would thus be: generally favorable toward public school system BUT read my lips no new taxes (knee-jerk default position).

Focus groupPost + Comments (73)